Romancing the Killer
by Rachael Lowrie
Summary: TRHP. The Light are losing the war. Harry is sent back in time by Dumbledore from the grave, with a clear instruction: kill Tom Riddle to save the world. But as he slowly sees past Voldemort to find a troubled young man, can he carry out his orders?


**A/N: HIIII EVERYBODY ;D. It's meeee; icravecheesecake. Um, yeah. I'm kind of abandoning my Drarry...:S well, not completely abandoning, I might pick it up again in a couple months or something … but I've just been hooked on an AMAZING new ship. And guess what it is … it's TomRiddle/HarryPotter! ;D This is my new fic for them. Never actually written a fic for that pairing before, so I hope this turns out okay …**

**Basically, it's a TimeTurner fic. :3 Yah, you know the ones. In mine, Harry is forced back into the past on the morning of the final battle. He's forced back to September 1****st ****1944, the year when Tom Riddle becomes a seventh year. Harry has to gain Tom's trust, and then kill him before he can kill anyone. But can Harry do it in the face of these new feelings come to light? And when he finds out the truth, will Tom Riddle take the menacing hand of evil or choose Harry?**

**By the way, this is AU. I changed the time when Tom Riddle killed his father, as you will read in this first chapter, on purpose. He still caused the death of Myrtle, though.**

**WHEY. So here we go! First chapter of this fic.. Hope you enjoy! There are about 1600 words in this first chapter.**

**Romancing The Killer:  
>Chapter One<strong>

Thick grey fumes filled the air, accompanying hoarse screams and the ghastly green in the sky above. Blood trickling down his face, Harry ran through the crumbling remains of the once majestic Great Hall, now littered with corpses and tainted by battle cries. As he ran he evaded curses but never flung them back; he was terrified he would cause the death of a loved one or friend, not that there looked to be many of those left anymore.

He choked and spluttered as the congested air attacked his lungs, wheezing as he searched wildly for any sign of Voldemort. He had to find him and hopefully kill him. He had to. He had lost enough people.

In the distance, he caught a glimpse of Ginny. He could recognise that fiery hair and even more fiery heart anywhere, and even though it was evident that the Light were going to be massacred, she looked to be keeping her fighting spirit until the end, her enraged voice shrieking brutal hexes at any Death Eater in sight. He had always admired Ginny for her courage - people said he was brave, but really he only did what he did because he had no choice. Yes, he admired Ginny, and truly thought it a pity that he just hadn't been able to love her the way she wanted him to.

With that thought, he dragged his eyes to the hallway floor and continued to stagger on hurriedly. Sounds of blood, and fire, and anguish attacked his aching ears, conspiring with the horrors Harry's eyes were drilling into him as he quickly stumbled onwards. He needed to find Voldemort; far too many people had fallen. The agonized screams of Ron and Cho and Neville and Hermione and countless others rang in his mind like taunting funeral bells and he made no attempt to stifle his choked sobs.

The twisted, sneering face of Lucius Malfoy suddenly lurched right up into his. The elder Malfoy pushed him up against the hard wall. It seemed he had rid himself that veneer of proud cold respectability and revealed himself as the madman he was, with his flaxen hair matted with Harry's friends' blood, and his face and hands covered in dirt and scars.

"I should think my Lord will highly thank me for catching you!" The man sneered, laughing manically as he groped for his dragon heartstring wand, but Harry had already snatched it from it's holder and snapped it in half. Then, with a savage glare, he stabbed the part with the sharpest edge into the crazed man's side.

Lucius howled, his stone eyes rolling back in his head as he dropped to his knees and rasped vicious insults on Harry's bloodline.

"Fuck you," Harry spat, wiping the blood from his right hand on his already red-soaked robes. Disgustedly, Harry kicked the man's twitching body over, and ran for his life, nearly tripping up the moving stairs and avoiding corpses as he went. His shoulders shook violently with every step.

Thick, deadly smoke clouded his vision. In a sudden blunder, he tripped over several slithering vines. It quickly became obvious that they were cursed, and attempting to squeeze Harry's neck tightly: eager, it seemed, to hear him wheeze a final breath. Harry struggled, screaming in frustration, until he felt someone push something harshly into his squirming hands.

Remus Lupin's panting, blood and tear- stricken face hovered before his, and he yelled, "I'm sorry, Harry!" Harry was about to scream a reply when he felt a tightening, sickening sensation, which he thought were the vines constricting him.

Then he realised, he was clutching a Time Turner. Panicked, he yelled loudly as he felt an awful pull in his stomach, signalling he was about to be ripped through time. Remus fell in front of him, untwitching, lifeless, after Harry saw the acid green of the Killing Curse lighting up the room, a terrible beacon of victory, the colour so similar to his eyes it made him sick.

"GODDAMNIT! Remus!" Harry scrabbled with his hands, trying to fix himself to the ground, to something solid, to the _present_, his throat hoarse from screaming. _No... no... another... they're all going... leaving me... can't leave! I have a duty! ...Remus. Dead. Another father figure dead... _He howled as he felt the chain of the Time Turner constrict, and all went black.

*******

Panting hard, Harry felt the sickly sensation eventually end and he thumped to the cold stone floor, falling flat. Exhausted, he pushed with his splayed, weakened arms, his fingers staining the floor with blotches of crimson. He managed to hurriedly push himself into a wobbly stance, frightenedly groping for his wand.

Struggling fully to his feet, he looked wildly about his surroundings. He was still, it seemed, in exactly the same place he had left from, only clearly in some other time. Harry was willing to bet it was bloody years in the past or future, because some pieces of décor were noticeably different, and there weren't blood and broken bodies everywhere torturing his mind.

Naturally, his mind was torturing itself anyway.

"WHERE THE FUCK AM I?" Harry, blinded by scarlet fury, yanked the Time Turner off of his neck roughly and threw it onto the floor, his breathing heavy and quick with distress. It clattered sharply on the floor, and, with a faint crack, split open, the strange sand rushing out of the hourglass.

He cursed under his breath, and shut his eyes for several seconds in an attempt to calm himself. When he reopened his eyes, however, he saw the misty sand that had been cased inside the Time Turner almost dancing in the air, rearranging and forming a curious shape, eventually sealing together and falling again to the floor.

Harry stared down at the yellow-parchment letter that now lay innocently in front of him, unblemished and pure, the only untainted survivor of the previous battle. Shakily he reached down to pick it up, accidentally smearing it with red as he did so. His eyes swivelled quickly over the elegant black writing as he began to read.

_Dear Harry,_

_I write to you as I fear that my time in this life will soon come to an end. In the event of my death, coupled with the possible circumstance of it appearing that we will not win this war against Voldemort, that I have instructed a trusted Order member to give you this Time Turner._

_I am sorry, my boy. But if you are reading this letter then I must tell you that now this is the only way the Light can win this war. I have instructed the transportation back in time for you so we can win this war._

_You will have arrived at the date of the first of September, nineteen fourty-four. This was Tom Riddle's seventh year of Hogwarts. He had not yet killed actively at this point in his life - as you know, he murdered his father the summer he graduated._

_I am so sorry, my boy, but what you will have to do is painfully simple - gain Tom Riddle's trust, then end his life. It is the only way to save millions of innocent people's lives. Just think about it Harry - your parents will be alive; will have lived! There will have been no Voldemort, and you will return to a normal life. Is that not what you always wanted, my dear boy?_

_One life to save millions, Harry. I know you are strong enough to do this._

_Albus Dumbledore._

So _Dumbledore _was behind this? Bitter, grudging approval rose in his soul. He supposed all he had to do was do away with one evil bastard for the Greater Good of the whole world. Here was his familiar Dumbledore, and to be honest, his plan was the best out there. If he could just manage this,_ he'd be able to know his parents_. His beautiful mother, Lily, and his charming, jovial father, James, would no longer be fleeting figments of wonder and regret in his mind, and imaginative dreams of what could have been.

A sudden thought split Harry's mind sharp, like a knife. He threw the parchment to the floor, wringing his head in his hands. His battered hands clenched so tightly his fingernails drew blood from his palms. How could he kill the young Tom Riddle? He may have been sinister, manipulative and clever in the Dark Arts, but at the time Harry had been forced back into, he had never even killed: much less attempted genocide! It would be one thing to end the life of the snake-faced, murderous, cruel Lord Voldemort, and another to kill a misled, troubled young man.

Then resolve hit Harry in the form of the shrieks of pain of the now future echoing terribly in his mind. Remembering Hermione's shrill terrified screams, and wincing at the recollection of the sight of Neville Longbottom's bloodied, mangled corpse, he realised that this was the only way to restore all those murdered by Voldemort over his lifetime. Even if it was going to be emotionally tolling as hell to kill Tom Riddle.

Sudden footsteps jolted him alert to his surroundings. Haphazardly he shoved the letter into his robes' pocket, slightly tearing it without meaning to, as he spun around quickly.

Tall, dark haired, pale and handsome like a statue, a beautiful cold sculpture, Tom Riddle stared at him with unflinching, steady, curious eyes. "Merlin, what happened to you?"

_Oh, speak of the bloody devil, _Harry thought, shock pumping through his system. He blacked out, Tom Riddle's voice fading to a blur in his mind. 

**Okay, that's over now. First chapter – finitoooo. Did you like it? PLEASE review if you liked it; that way I know if I need to carry on with it or not. This is probably going to go un- updated for about three weeks now, as I'm going to spend the rest of this week writing up a second chapter, but I might not finish it by Saturday morning, which is when I have to travel to the airport to go on holiday for two weeks. :P So you'll either get the next chapter on Friday night, or in three weeks time from now.**

**Anyway, thank you for reading, please review, and watch out for the next chapter soon!**

**Much love,**

**Rachael Lowrie**


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